Kenya A. Jenkins-Wright
General Counsel, Illinois Guardianship & Advocacy Commission

Kenya A. Jenkins-Wright is the General Counsel of the Illinois Guardianship Advocacy Commission (IGAC), an executive state agency focused on safeguarding the rights of persons with disabilities. She has served under two Governors of both parties since February 2015. Ms. Jenkins-Wright manages litigation strategy and advises the Executive Director on all legal, compliance, ethics, and auditing matters facing the IGAC and its three divisions. Prior to joining IGAC, she served as a commercial litigator
handling product liability, medical malpractice, and Section 1983 civil rights action with Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP and Greene and Letts (n/k/a Zuber Lawler).

Ms. Jenkins-Wright has received numerous awards in recognition of her work to increase access to justice and her community involvement including: Chicago Bar Association’s Earl Dickerson Award (2023); Top 50 Women in Law, Chicago Daily Law Bulletin and Chicago Lawyer (2021); Northern Illinois University College of Law Alum of the Year (2022); Illinois Bar Foundation inaugural Changemaker Award (2020); National Bar Association 40 Under 40 (2018); Chicago Daily Law Bulletin 40 Under Forty Illinois Attorneys to Watch (2014); American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division Star of the Year Award; Illinois Super Lawyer; Cook County Bar Association’s Junior Counselor Award; and Cook County Bar Association President’s Award.

Ms. Jenkins-Wright is the President of the Chicago Bar Foundation (CBF). She is a member of the First District Committee on Character and Fitness for the Illinois Board of Admissions to the Bar. She also serves as an ARDC Hearing Board Member and as a member of the NIU-COL Board of Visitors. As an active Illinois State Bar Association (ISBA) member, she is the Co-Chair of the ISBA’s Steering Committee on Equity and Justice. She is an appointed member of the ISBA Standing Committee on Disability Law, Women and the Law Committee, and Bench & Bar Section Council.

Her prior leadership roles include the following: President, Black Women Lawyers’ Association of Greater Chicago, Inc. (BWLA); ISBA Board of Governors; Chair of ISBA’s Standing Committee on Racial & Ethnic Minorities and the Law; Board member, Cook County Bar Association, the oldest African American Bar Association in the country; Past President of the NIU-COL Alumni Council; Past President of the CBF Young Professionals Board; and Diversity Director, American Bar Association Young Lawyers Division.

Ms. Jenkins-Wright received her Juris Doctor from Northern Illinois University College of Law, magna cum laude. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Communication from Valparaiso University, magna cum laude. She is admitted to practice in Illinois and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

Kori Carew
Chief Catalyst Officer and Founder, Bridge 68 LLC

Kori is a people inclusion strategist, advocate, speaker, coach, writer, attorney, status quo disruptor, truthteller, wife, and mother of two curly-haired, wise, energetic, fierce, spitfire daughters. Her family is multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multi-religious, and spans multiple nationalities. She brings a fierce love of community and belonging that transcends differences to her work, ministry, and life.  She loves to sing, cook, entertain, dance in the hallways at work, and read when she is not equipping leaders to be inclusive, interrupt bias, and disrupt the status quo or helping individuals live their best and fiercest lives. At her day job she focuses on developing and implementing strategies for individual career and diversity and inclusion success, helps organizations build bridges across differences and improve inclusion, coaches, trains on people, leadership, and talent development as well as diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging topics. 

Kori is a Certified Dare to Lead™ Facilitator, a certified Gallup CliftonStrengths® Coach  and an IDI Qualified Administrator. She also is an Enneagram 1 (improver) and Conscious Reformer on the Insight Profiles Discovery wheel (blue). Her top 5 CliftonStrengths® are: connectedness, achiever, leaner, responsibility, and context. Kori took up painting during the pandemic and is energized by helping people live their best lives. When she is not "working" she focuses her voice and talent on issues of gender equity and rights, inclusion, and human and civil rights, serving in her church and community, entertaining in her home, and cherishing her phenomenal tribe and community. 

Kori is the Chief Catalyst Officer and Founder of the consulting firm Bridge 68 LLC which she created after 22 years of leading, advocating and counseling in law firms including leading Inclusion and Diversity strategies and programs in AmLaw 100 law firms. She was most recently the Chief Inclusion and Diversity Officer at international law firm Seyfarth Shaw where she rolled out several talent and inclusion initiatives including the nationally recognized collaborative The Belonging Project.